


beggars can't be choosers

by AirFireWaterEarth



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Everyone shows up - Freeform, I tried though, Karasuno Coven, M/M, maybe ooc?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 06:44:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13653612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirFireWaterEarth/pseuds/AirFireWaterEarth
Summary: He hated it. But it was nothing new. Simply existing meant there wasn't really another choice





	beggars can't be choosers

He hated feeling useless.

To be honest, who liked it? It was a crawling feeling that made it feel as if your entire existence wasn’t worth anything. Perhaps, maybe, Tadashi exaggerated things in his head. But it awful being at home almost by himself, knowing the rest were doing something actually useful. Tadashi shifted again, reminding himself that yes he had a use and that it was just for later. He simply just wasn’t of use now. Or, they’d excluded the word “use” all together because they knew him well enough to understand the moment he did he’d fall into a little hole of self pity.

Tadashi inhaled deeply. He wasn’t doing himself any favors by wallowing. He needed to think of the bright side. Like how the rest of Karasuno would return with a heart! Tadashi’s gloomy mood resided with the thought. It was a human heart. He’d used the hearts of sheep, pigs, cows, goats— you could name anything really— and they’d worked mediocrely for his dolls, some better than others. But the few times Tadashi had gotten to use human hearts really showed. His dolls were more attentive, faster, and Tadashi had even added a few other accessories that made them even… lovelier. 

Tadashi traced patterns in the kitchen table. The kitchen— like the rest of the house— was shared by Karasuno. It was typically crowded and loud. But alone (well, there was Kiyoko, but she rarely spoke and even more rarely to Tadashi when Yachi wasn’t around him), it was empty and almost insufferably silent. Not that Tadashi disliked quiet or space; it was just that the home lacked the warmth of Karasuno. Empty, it was just an old home with a million bedrooms and buckets collecting water. While the house was large, it wasn’t grand. Some places Daichi had to patch up and even then there were still some holes. Tonight, it was raining, but nothing had dripped through the ceiling yet. Tadashi almost wanted it to, if just to make some white noise.

Finally, the back door creaked open— it was attached to the kitchen— and the rest of Karasuno and its sound stepped through. Tadashi jumped to his feet and Kiyoko made her way into the room. Tadashi greeted them warmly, but was anxious to see Tsukki. Tsukki wasn’t exactly a team player and, even though he’d clearly warmed up to their coven, didn’t mingle enough to be at the front of the stampede. 

Finally, Tsukishima made his way through the door and Tadashi was quick to greet him.

“Tsukki! Did you guys do what Ukai told you to do?” Tadashi inquired knowing full well the answer.

Tsukki huffed, “Of course.”

Tadashi toyed with his hands and leaned forward.

“Did you, um, you know..?” he asked hesitantly.

Tsukki rolled his eyes, a glimmer of amusement simmering underneath.

“Ask Suga.”

Tadashi quickly turned to find the ashen-haired male was right behind him. In his hands was a plain wooden box. The bottom was slightly damp, meaning they’d probably taken it out the minute they’d gotten the man to kill himself. A fresh heart. 

He was squirming with excitement now, barely containing himself. Tadashi was still himself, however, and hesitant to take the box.

Tadashi had to force his hands to sides in order to ask, “Do you want me to use a specific doll?”

Suga smiled warmly, “We trust your judgement.”

Tadashi smiled widely and received the box enthusiastically. He wouldn’t let them down.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Koushi watched Yamaguchi Tadashi go to his room and chuckled a little. Tadashi was the only member who had his own room. While he would have happily roomed with Tsukishima (and vice versa, no matter how cold the blonde pretended to be), he needed the room for his dolls, something the other members understood. 

The other members had funneled out of the kitchen by them, hooting or shushing or, in Daichi’s case, lecturing. Tsukishima, however, was still looking at the stairwell Yamaguchi had disappeared up into. Koushi let out a breath and turned to talk to him.

“Are you worried about him?” he quietly murmured, “Because you really don’t need to. No one in Karasuno gets hurt.”

There was a beat of silence before Tsukishima spoke his mind.

“He doesn’t deserve to be here.”

Koushi scoffed, “He just took a heart from a man we recently killed to bring to life a demon doll.”

“Don’t call it that,” Tsukishima snapped, “It’s just… It’s… not…”

Suddenly, Tsukishima’s words became uncharacteristically tentative. Koushi had always had a feeling there had been an underlying reason Tsukishima and Tadashi had shown up that night. A reason why Tsukishima, the least of team player one could be, became part of a coven like Karasuno.

“You think,” Koushi supplied, “it’s not his fault.”

There was only the voices of their coven in the next room. Tsukishima didn’t say anything. Koushi took it that he was right.

“Why?” if Tsukishima wasn’t going to tell him anything, Koushi would fish for it, “He’s just as guilty as you or me. It’s not just that he hasn’t killed a human before is it? He knows what’s going on here, he isn’t innocent, you know this. So why?”

Tsukishima looked very thoroughly offended. His seemingly permanent scowl grew harsher. Maybe it sounded a bit like Koushi was accusing him of something; he wasn’t. He just wanted to know.

“Yamaguchi’s different.” he hissed.

“That’s very specific.”

“Tch.” a pause, “His mother died.”

Koushi sighed and crossed his arms. This wasn’t surprising to anyone; not in a coven of necromancers. He wasn’t saying something.

“And?” he prompted.

Tsukishima sat down at the table that was in no way made for fourteen people but they made work. He stared at the wall. Koushi was fine with this; he knew this made it easier to talk about difficult topics.

“It was sudden. Yamaguchi and I were fourteen when she died of exhaustion from working at the factories. Yamaguchi couldn’t accept it. I should have stopped him from bringing her back, but seeing him so dead was… hard. His mother was just a somewhat functional corpse walking. It got to the point where she started to decay. But I kept playing along, creating illusions wherever Yamaguchi’s magic faltered. 

She was decayed to the bone and it was almost Yamaguchi’s 15th birthday by the time the magic in the heart ran out. It wasn’t just the corpse that looked worn to the bone. I gave Yamaguchi money in every way I could, but he still had to work. Not to mention, he had been controlling a corpse for months. Yamaguchi was worse than before; I… I had to do something. So I gave him a doll.” 

Koushi was well equipped with the information on who Tsukishima’s first ‘kill’ (Tsukishima’s magic was too much like him to be the kind that got hands dirty) was— how it started when someone had caught Tadashi killing their sheep for its heart.

“That was when Tadashi’s obsession with his dolls started.” Koushi finished. “You’ve been blaming yourself.”

Tsukishima turned back to him.

“Don’t talk to me like that. I know what we did to belong here.”

With that, Tsukishima got up to leave the kitchen. But Koushi stopped him before he left.

“You mean to say you regret your powers.” Every word he said was beginning to taste more and more bitter. 

Tsukishima huffed and gave his insincere smile— the only smile he gave outside of Tadashi. 

“Of course not. It’s too late now. Now if you could stop using your power on me; I thought that it was against the rules.”

Koushi stiffened, and let it go.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Suga was good when it came to attaining their target. He was good for controlling loud mouthed lunatics like that crow whisperer. What aggravated Tsukishima Kei was that Suga was also good at getting the information he wanted. And now Kei had said too much. Luckily, Sugar was also good at keeping his mouth shut. Otherwise, Kei would have to bend that coven rule as well. 

Kei opened the door to Yamaguchi’s room, not bothering to knock. While Yamaguchi’s obsession with his dolls could sometimes come close to rivaling his obsession from Kei, it couldn’t rival his trust. And that would, on Kei’s watch, never change. Chills rolled up Kei’s back, but he pushed it back into the recesses of his mind. He peered over to see what Tadashi was working on, but the lighting was too dark. His eyesight was bad enough as it was.

“How do you see in here?” Kei muttered

Yamaguchi turned around and shrugged. “Comes with being a necromancer I guess.”

In his left hand was a pair of tweezers and a needle with thread was in his right. Kei glanced at the two utensils then looked back up.

“Skipped me.”

Yamaguchi gave a soft snicker and turned back to his project.

“Help me?” he asked lightly.

Kei obliged by walking around to the other side of the table. He could see, now, what the doll was. It’s hands were metallic bars that extended into knife-like objects. The body was human-like: a bit shapeless, but covered in rubber somewhat alike to skin. The legs looked more like bird’s legs. The qualities were the same for the face. Eyes pierced into Kei’s and the face pulled itself into a beak. 

“Did Hinata help you plan this?” Kei drawled.

Yamaguchi glanced at the wall, “Maaaybe.” 

Kei coughed out a laugh, “What do I need to do.”

“You,” Yamaguchi began, “Get to stand her up while I attach the wings.”

Kei’s raised his eyebrows.

“You can do that?”

Yamaguchi gave a blinding smile, “I think I have the calculations right. Besides, I have a human heart! Sky’s the limit.”

Kei nodded and went to gingerly hold the doll up. Yamaguchi readjusted his hands.

“She’s not really a she. You can hold her chest.” Yamaguchi babbled.

This was why Kei would come in here whilst Yamaguchi was making dolls. Sometimes, Yamaguchi needed his own time to make his dolls, but those times were obvious. All the other times, however, Kei bit the bullet and went into the room to keep Yamaguchi sane. A sane Yamaguchi babbled. If there was a place that could drive Yamaguchi insane it was his room. There was something about Yamaguchi’s room that tangled with Kei’s stomach. It wasn’t even the horror dolls anymore. There was just something about it that made Kei uncomfortable. Kei had been making subtle hints to Yamaguchi that maybe it would be best they roomed together. But Yamaguchi needed room for his dolls. It was always the response.

Okay, so maybe it was the dolls. 

Kei hated the dolls.

Still, he’d hold the Poe doll and attach wings and whatever Yamaguchi needed because there was no going back in time. There was no going back before Yamaguchi’s and Kei’s powers showed themselves, when Yamaguchi would watch the stars and they would find constellations. No going back to before Yamaguchi’s mother’s death, when they would read books prehistoric animals. No going back to before the day Kei convinced that farmer to kill himself, so that no one knew about Yamaguchi’s dolls. 

“Tsukki? Tsuuuukki?” Yamaguchi waved his hands in front of Kei’s face.

Kei blinked and cocked an eyebrow at Yamaguchi.

“We’re done! Now’s the best part.” Yamaguchi’s eye twinkled. Bittersweet. “Do you think it’ll be useful?”

Useful. Another thing Kei hated. It was pathetic. 

“Yes.” he replied dryly, “I’m sure it will.”

Yamaguchi picked up on the emptiness of the statement, but moved on. He took the box and reached up to open the box in the Crow Creature’s chest. The heart was dripping still, but looked as dead as its corpse would be (had Daichi not turned the rest to stone and shattered it). Once in, Yamaguchi summoned his magic. He closed his eyes and a little blue light streamed from his hands and heart, into the doll’s “heart”. 

Kei hated holding the figure and feeling it come to life, but that was nothing new.

**Author's Note:**

> Super conflicted on making this a multi-chap. Could still change my mind and make it a one-shot (which was what I'd originally intended).


End file.
